Cycle paths adjacent to main roads

[Mike_P]

"..getting out of my estate"
Just a point of clarification; growing up in Norwich, the use of the term 'estates' was always for council estates where the great unwashed were kept away from the better educated and those of us who washed at least once a week, so is the current use of the term 'estate' now used for any housing development?

Yes - new build developments are often referred to as estates.

 

[blackrat]

Yes - new build developments are often referred to as estates.

Got it. They are platted as sub-divisions here and called neighbourhoods. Each has a name, often taken from a main road running through or adjacent or the historic district.
If the road, for example, is called: Victoria Street (where I grew up), the sub-division would be platted as Victoria Sub-division and people living in that sub-division would say they live in Victoria. I live in Tanglewilde sub-division, the primary street through the neighbourhood, so I live in Tanglewilde.
Which all in all, is undoubtedly far more information in which anyone here is interested.

 

[Alex321]

"..getting out of my estate"
Just a point of clarification; growing up in Norwich, the use of the term 'estates' was always for council estates where the great unwashed were kept away from the better educated and those of us who washed at least once a week, so is the current use of the term 'estate' now used for any housing development?

Always has been in most of the country I think.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Yes - new build developments are often referred to as estates.

I have an estate manager who looks after my estate and deals with the tiresome peasants in their tied cottages.

pip pip

 

[straas]

I've used this one going from Conwy to Bangor - interesting cycling towards arctics...

This one along the airport relief road in Stockport, Gtr Manchester isn't too bad, ok surface but fiddly and slow when crossing perpedicular roads.

Alongside a B road, but one I use pretty frequently and of decent enough quality that I can ride with kids:

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've used this one going from Conwy to Bangor - interesting cycling towards arctics...

I'm assuming that the path is on the far side of the barriers. It's not entirely clear from the picture

 

[straas]

I'm assuming that the path is on the far side of the barriers. It's not entirely clear from the picture

haha yes, and is wider than it appears in the image.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've ridden this one on the A413 between Winslow and Buckingham (about 10km) a couple of times. I've also ridden the road before the cycle path was there - at least my records say I have. I don't remember riding that road so it can't have been all that bad, but the cycle path is definitely my choice. This may not be the case for faster cyclists but it's fine for a trundler like me.

It's perfectly OK. Surface is a bit lumpy at times. It has a number of turnings where you have to be careful but most of them are lanes and tracks so I just had to slow down and be careful, but didn't need to stop for most of them. I had a few dog walkers/joggers to pass but not many. I seem to remember there is an odd bit where it switched sides of the road for a while in a village. I abandoned it and took the road for that stretch as it was a bit of a fiddle. The cycle path continues once you get into Buckingham itself but once inside the town and a 30 limit I returned to the road as I wanted to concentrate on navigating and I was afraid the bike path would take me somewhere else (they tend to do that) and there were lots more obstructions and people on the path in the town.

 

[mjr]

The cycle path continues once you get into Buckingham itself but once inside the town and a 30 limit I returned to the road as I wanted to concentrate on navigating and I was afraid the bike path would take me somewhere else (they tend to do that).

Nah, it just continues up London Road as far as the leisure centre and ends with a 'cyclists rejoin carriageway' sign. There is an alternative route to the Town Centre via Bourton Park if you cross London Road at the first opportunity inside the bypass and turn right, but I'd probably only use it if London Road seemed super busy.

That Buckingham - Winslow cycle route may get busier once Winslow station finally reopens.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

"..getting out of my estate"
Just a point of clarification; growing up in Norwich, the use of the term 'estates' was always for council estates where the great unwashed were kept away from the better educated and those of us who washed at least once a week, so is the current use of the term 'estate' now used for any housing development?

I use it to describe the group of house I live on - they are separated from other groups and can only be entered by one of 2 roads

Other people around here seem to do the same and builders use it to describe a new group they are building/trying to sell

The group of counsel houses across the park - which has a bad reputation - is referred to as an estate as well

I suspect His Majesty may use it to describe some slightly different areas

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

haha yes, and is wider than it appears in the image.

Hah - yes - used to live near there but never rode along that bit of road so I was wondering if that was a proper cycle path or not

But I ddi remember that there is a decent one that goes right along the coast - right past there

 

[rydabent]

We had a VERY expensive cycle path built out of town last year (or the year before, time flies) but sadly it doesn't go very far. Basically they turned a narrow footpath into a multiuser path which no one in town thought anyone would use. Well, I have twice now, both times to cycle to the beach further up the coastline from ours. In fact, this morning I cycled up there to have my first morning cuppa to watch the sunrise. It was lovely. But this cycle path, whilst protecting cyclists from an extremely busy road which is the only road into/out of our town, sadly stops unceremoniously not much further along than the beach turn off, making the main road more of a death trap for cyclists.

Do you have cycle/multiuser paths near you and do you use them?

Almost always. Lincoln has over 130 miles of hard surface bike trails.

 

[Dadam]

Pavement cycling.
Here's an example where I for one probably would, albeit briefly. I've never cycled on this route but I was investigating routes near me on cycle.travel and thought of this thread.

Green painted cycleway ends, shared path starts for the crossing (red circle). At this point it's a shared path so legal.

50 feet later, past the crossing, there's a little sign tucked in near the wall that says no cycling.

Yes, the sign that's only just visible when you're at the crossing and could quite easily be obscured by foliage from the tree. If I was on a bike going past that crossing, it's a very narrow point and a fairly blind bend. Even if not obscured it'd be easy to miss.

The implication is at that point you're dumped back out onto the road into the painted "lane".

I know a lot of people round that area drive like lunatics, and that little slip road is not somewhere I'd want to be joining the traffic. Here's a reverse view:

No, I would be rejoining the main road a little bit round the corner, past the constriction and after the sight lines open up again.

Not to mention the fact that in order to actually rejoin the carriageway where intended, you've got to hook a very sharp right to use that tiny bit of dropped kerb past the traffic light pole.

 

[mjr]

Avenues - Glasgow City Council https://share.google/bsK6pi4bwNEyn7ayu

That actually took me to https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/article/11803/The-Avenues - not sure why people have to be tracked by Google to access that?

Anyway, there's a lot of plans. I looked at Argyle Street West for starters. Never having cycled in Glasgow, I don't understand the ends of those drawings and whether it's connecting to other things at the ends, or whether it's just needlessly complicated. The westernmost crossing looks like it's staggered which is substandard too, making westbound cyclists wait for two sets of lights when motorists only wait for one, but I could be wrong and they'll synchronise both sides, with the island just to give refuge to anyone slow. I guess the trees along the road are there already and have to be avoided? If so, it's fine for starters, but some of the corners to avoid the loading bays and bus shelters seem unnecessarily tight. The cycleway colouring should continue across the side street junctions but I think the colours on the plans denote surface types, rather than what will be painted, but there's no key. I've not checked the dimensions (especially widths) exactly.

Overall, it looks OK. Better than most of the rubbish I see, but still substandard in a few ways and the staggered crossing and tight corners seem like they could be fixed easily.

 

[presta]

The only one I use out of choice is this one, there's a short stretch of about 0.75m where the old road was buried under the dual carriageway when they built it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jCRjW4wyg5MgwfsPA

Sometimes you get shouted at by pedestrians, they tell you to ride on the road.
If you ride on the road, drivers will shout to get on the cycle path.

Your problem is you can't cope with conflicting information.

I remember speaking to one of our local council leads in the cycling infra department, who'd been sent on a fact finding mission to Holland to learn all about Dutch cycle lanes, and this was in the era when Active Travel England appeared to be doing things properly. The thing they learnt from this, so they told me, was you could construct piecemeal bursts of cycling infra, only where it fitted and didnt disturb motorists space on the road, and cyclists would just automatically link up a route with all the bits in between, so you didnt need to build a route or a transport network for cycling on, just had to concentrate on small bits, make them abit nicer, and people would work out the rest.

I think I was too dumbfounded to respond to her.

I dont think the UK is ever going to get cycle lanes/paths to the level you have in Denmark, or the Dutch have, the car has just become ingrained as the only mode of transport now and its only getting worse.

As we are building lots of brand new housing estates and yet theyre completely isolated in terms of a network of paths or cycle routes, or even bus routes to join up with the neighbouring areas. Like even in the brochure for the new houses it mentions how close you are to local supermarkets, local shops, local amenities and so on, but I guarantee everyone who lives in those new houses will drive, even if the journey is less than 2miles, and theyll complain bitterly about how much traffic there is on the roads and how long it takes to drive anywhere, and yet theres really no over option being provided for them, and there wont be anything retrofitted for another 20 years.

New housing developments still perpetuating car dependency:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53050801
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60245980

For the sake of self preservation, you should always stop & check, or at least slow down enough to be able to stop.

This is the issue I have with cycle paths.

Whenever I point out the amount of energy wasted by stopping at every side road I'm told that cycle paths can be laid out to give cyclists priority, but if you want to stay out of a wheelchair, the issue isn't about giving the priority to cyclists, it's about having motorists who'll respect it.

personally I like the ones abroad where there would be separate Give Way marking before the cycle path showing that bikes can just keep going

Either way, a motorists view of cyclists, and a cyclists view of motorists becomes restricted:

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There is no such recommendation

It's in Cyclecraft.